@anenomoose - Tumblr Blog

‘Caper in the Castro’ was thought to be long lost.

Caper in the Castro is a legendary video game, not because legions of die-hard fans continue to play it, but because it was thought to be lost forever. Now, what is largely considered to be the first LGBTQ-focused video game (it was released in 1989) is on the Internet Archive for anybody to play.

The game is a noir point-and-click that puts the player in the (gum)shoes of a private detective named Tracker McDyke who is, in case you couldn’t guess by the name, a lesbian. McDyke must unravel the mystery behind the disappearance of Tessy LaFemme, a transgender woman, in San Francisco’s Castro district, an historically gay neighbourhood.

OOOOOHhh!

The game was released as charityware – freely, with a strong request to give a donation an AIDS Charity of their choice. I’d like to push towards still following that and donating, if you’re able.

(And you might also want to donate to the Internet Archive, who is hosting it now, while you’re at it – they’re in the middle of a donation drive, and could use your support.)

#andy #game #video game #do this thing

JK Rowling is certainly a bad person, but reading Harry Potter definitely taught me to be able to tell fiction from reality 🙄🙄🙄

#urgh #your brain can tell fiction from reality #it forgets where it has learned things #there is a difference #i understand that dofference is confusing

mysharona1987

Why are all these billionaires so absolutely obsessed with space?

An honest question.

kayas-wife

They don't think the Earth will remain survivable.

thefriendlyneighborhoodpervert

They have no INTENTION in the earth remaining survivable. That means that they have to spend money (pay taxes) that they can't use to PROFIT off of. They can charge you for the right to live if they have the only habitable places left in the universe.

anenomoose

Yep

mugges

rivendellrose

Anthropology major answer: “There absolutely was such a time! Modern humans and our ancestors shared territory numerous times over prehistory with cousin species like homo neanderthalensis, homo floresiensis, and many, many others!”

Folklore student answer: “Also, almost all cultures have something like djinn, faeries, hulder, fox spirits, and other similar creatures who can appear at least human and are very, very dangerous to humans!”

Both of these things are true, and may be connected both to the above and to each other. :D

et-regina

Biology majors: it’s dead bodies guys. Corpses.

luidilovins

Listen I hate this take on the uncanny valley so fucking much because many subpsecies of homonids lived in the same areas but some of them got along well enough to coexist and neandertals had enough desirable genetic traits to the point where human women (see here for a blanket on female vs male choosiness) would often pass up incel homosepian for the chad neandertal.

Genetics aside, various hominid species didn’t start visually looking all that different until 50,000 years ago, while under the skin changes began as early as 89,000 years ago (ie the development of the Y chromosome but I might be oversimplifying at this point) Point being, even our non-human cousins didn’t. look. that. different. from. us. Especially comparing the diversifying of humans themselves crossing trans continental as it was. And even then neandertals still had advantagious traits for living in the Eurasian hemisphere.

Also I digress, regardless of it being intentional, and with few perserved records from that chapter in our species’ history, I don’t like the implication that the uncanny valley effect stems from humans being inherently racist (for lack of a word for hatred of non-human intelligences). I know that sounds off the wall but prejudice and sense of superiority by birthright is vastly different than othering by means of the sucess of social groups and the need to compete for territory or resources. Racism is entirely a Eurpean fabrication and it’s been proven time and time again to be a cultural outlier and purposfully designed to further the agenda of corroded theocratical religious divinity (here, here, here) and the financial benifits of the exploitation of colonism that otherwise has not been replicated by other cultures to the same degree. (this is the only example off the top of my head but I’m know there’s more.)

You know what’s older than racism?

You know what’s more flesh crawling than neandertals?

fucking rabies

You know what LOOKS like a human but doesn’t ACT human ENOUGH? Do you know what might bite you and get you sick or turn you into something that also moves about in a non human way? Brain parasites that give you painful headaches and intensifies agression and confusion.

Say you’re a monkey and one member of your troop gets bitten by something. Later he starts twitching and swaying about. He keeps stumbling out of trees but barely feels anything when he hits the ground. He won’t eat sleep or drink. He makes guttural noises that keep alerting predators and he’s in obvious writhing agony. Suddenly he’s not your friend anymore. He doesn’t recognize you and he attempts to bite and claw at anything that moves.

Up until preventitive oral medications and vaccines were developed in the 1970s there was NOTHING stopping rabies and it still prevails today and kills hundreds of thousands of people in third world countries with limited medical resources a year. There’s no cure for rabies once youve got it and the only reliable diagnostic is a brain autopsy.

Rabies. TB. Leoprosy. Syphilis. Meningitis. Toxoplasmosis. Anthrax. Mercury Poisoning. Prion disease. These are all bad and in different varying degrees can cause limps, sores, agression, confusion or dazed trances, ambled pacing, convulsions or uncharacteristic behavior in humans.

Basically everything that people are terrified of when it comes to zombies. Vampires bite. Werewolves rip people apart. Demonic possesion? Easy. Changlings take the place of your loved ones.

Also I don’t think that it’s a conicidence that the things we find uncomfortable with the uncanny valley also just happen to line up with predatory behavior, smiling too wide or staring you down, blinking too slowly or moving towards you with a slow steady speed. It’s just a danger signal to keep other monkeys in a troop from getting bitten by an infected monkey. Simple as that.

After all what’s scarier? A dead body, or moving body that will MAKE you dead?

I’m not going to be a hypocrite by pointing out racism being excused as a stemmed human behavior without claiming that the deep seated primal fear of disease doesn’t make a good excuse for ableism as well. I mean we use othering to discern friend from foe, and then at some point decided that was a good enough excuse for racism. Theres legitimate proof that ancient homonids could and would be hospitible to the disabled out of compassion. The point of having these initial fears is to guage saftey measures first, but once someone or something is proven to be harmless that normally should be the end of it. I mean if an adult wild silverback gorrilla can look at a spycam and decide it’s chill after a moment of inspection then there’s really no excuse for any of us.

Healthy othering =/= newly invented racism.

healthy fear of infectious diseases =/= excuse to hate disabled people.

But yeah rabies is more likely the reason for the uncanny valley effect thanks for coming to my goddamn ted talk.

quasisnipr1048

Reblogging this version bc of sources and I personally think this makes for much more interesting (and terrifying) lore than any other post in this thread.

warpedellipsis

it wouldn’t be a dead body in itself, it’s a dead body FULL OF DISEASE like maggots and all kinds of bacteria crawling around in it.

anenomoose

Dead bodies are not actually dangerous. The skin is an exceent barrier against bacreria (just dont touch mucus membranes) and maggots are not inherently harmful

warpedellipsis

dead bodies break down and rot, and that produces and harbors tons of bad bacteria. maggots in themselves aren’t bad, but they eat all the dead flesh, and so are filled with and covered in that rotting bacteria. it’s no different than sewage. our living bodies already have a lot of bacteria, and a lot of bad bacteria–the bad stuff goes nuts when you die because your organs are no longer removing waste or cleaning up. bugs and stuff come eat or lay their eggs, and those bugs carry disease.

embalmed dead bodies like we have at funerals, those aren’t dangerous, yeah. immediately dead bodies aren’t dangerous, no. but a dead body from way back when this uncanny valley would have been developing, that’s what i’m talking about. if you’re hanging around a dead body for a while, that’s when the problems happen, in the same way that if you hold on to rotting food or hang out around sewage, you’re going to have problems. you can clean up rotting food and sewage easy, and that’s not going to cause problems for you. but if it’s left there or you go poke at it or eat it or it contaminates your water or other food because we as monkeys had not developed that aversion yet and it looks like free food, that’s when problems happen. same as the problems europe had during the middle ages, and where poorer people today still do because plumbing doesn’t exist.

anenomoose

People buried the dead and left them with trinkets from prehistoric times, and in many climates it takes a while for a bofy to get to the point that it harbours pathogens to a dangerous degree.

warpedellipsis

When people were burying their dead, that was long after the development of this uncanny valley sense. And when people or monkeys or whatever we want to call that stage in our evolution, when they got sick and died of disease, that disease was in the dead body. Bodies are not sterile in any way, especially given that we’re talking about animals making this judgement, not modern humans who know how and what disease is and what’s contagious and how to keep yourself from infection. That does not exist in the time under discussion. Bodies that are starting to rot, that had a smell, but weren’t too far off normal–those are where uncanny valley comes from. Just as rabies sets it off. Because us as these monkeys developing this sense to stay away from diseased bodies, regardless if they’re part of the troop or not. Regardless of the altruistic, social desire to help.

Today we can do all kinds of things like take care of people who are deadly contagious without getting sick ourselves. Today we can clean and prep dead bodies for goodbyes. That doesn’t exist when our monkey or whatever ancestors were developing the aversion to disease that we now call uncanny valley.

anenomoose

Hkw do ypu know that that the uncanny valley thing happened before we buried our dead? And when I say that dead bodies arent dangerous, I mean that in most climates a body can last a few days and not be dangerous in that time, whether it died of a contageous disease or not.

A virus would not survive long in a body that no longer has reproducing cells, and even though bacteria would survive a lot longer, there needs to be some kind of vector, so open sores or breath. Dead bodies dont breathe and blood congeals. It will start to smell very bad long before it gets to the point where it will explode.

warpedellipsis

thinking about the theoretical stuff that tells us why the uncanny valley would have come before burial of our dead:

because burial is from culture, which requires higher brain function and beliefs about the after life, aka religion; or at least beliefs about mourning and caring that extend beyond death. those are not evolutionary abilities (the cognition to do it IS, but the ideas about death do not come from evolution in the same way that development of the eye does). it is purely information based behavior, in the same way that financial literacy is informational and not evolutionary.

as far as i’m aware, humans are the only species that bury their dead/have funeral rites. some creatures mourn and seem to understand what death is, but none have death rites like we do. however, lots of animals recognize and have an aversion to disease/sickness. advanced beliefs about death must come AFTER the ability to acknowledge/recognize death, which itself is AFTER the aversion to disease that prevents sickness and death. basics come first in evolution, because without simple survival you have nothing; simplicity comes first in culture/cognition, because just like with math, you cannot have more advanced ideas before first creating the simpler ones to build on.

so, factually: burial began about 130kya (wiki says 100kya but i have seen earlier estimates), meanwhile monkeys have been shown to have the uncanny valley effect too.

extra little bit about how the uncanny valley feeling may be produced.

viruses can live on surfaces and lots of places without reproducing. this is why we disinfect bathroom counters and showers and toilets, why we ought to clean door handles and elevator buttons, as the covid pandemic has shown us. they can live in the air and pretty much anywhere. a body being dead does not stop it from being contagious, in the same way that a pile of poop is dangerous despite the fact it never was or will be alive. simply touching it, or cross contamination through touching things that have been contaminated by it, touching animal poop from animals that fed off it, flies and other bugs transmitting disease, breathing in near it, all that is how disease spreads. rain water coming off it and reaching other people can carry infection. bodies need not smell for the disease and things to be contagious and deadly. a body need not be alive to be a danger. even today, we do not just throw dead bodies into coffins and have funerals, they must be rendered safe–and even before the morticians get it, it still needs to be safe for the mortician to handle. I don’t know what the process for that is, but there must be one. here are a few: one, two; it appears that there are guidances per each specific possible disease, so that’s how to look up the procedures for any specific one.

anenomoose

Mostly, a dead body is safe to handle and there are very few exceptions. Embalming is not safer than not embalming, it just makes the body last longer for people to look at. Dead bodies don't set off the uncanny valley effect. I have seen dead bodies and for the most part they just look like people. Sick people, on the other hand, look scary.

And elephants mourn their dead and I would say that they have mourning rites.

seethroughhue-deactivated201902

wait for it…

samoora-alamoora

Good article with a bad headline

frottinq

Good article with a headline intentionally misrepresenting the point maliciously.

snark-n-snack

Petition to branch off Ongoing Traumatic Stress Disorder as a separate but related thing.

warpedellipsis

that is not how that works. and “imaginary” is completely bullshit. this woman is incompetent and trying to score racism points. it is called “post” because it happens AFTER having experienced trauma. whether it is still ongoing or not is beside the fucking point. so she’s a quack and deliberately spreading false information. just like dr oz, how cute. whether or not the danger was “real” is also beside the point; there is no way to definitely prove any given incident was truly a danger to one’s life unless you get a conviction in court of attempted murder. your personal feelings about it dont’ matter, according to this woman, because she’s just told you that running over IEDs doesn’t count and hearing exlposions and being flashed back to ieds your entire life doesn’t count. that being in a war and then “going how to safety”–ahahhahaha–doesn’t count. that constant threat to you doesn’t count. so according to her, rape and sexual assault are not attempts on your life. all abuse except explicit, proven attempted murder are not attempts on your life–and you lived, you big pussy, so clearly it wasn’t enough to kill you and so you don’t have ptsd. bullying and harassment and oppression are not attempts on your life. that kind of definition is precisely why ptsd was not recognized until the 90s, and wasn’t recognized–still isn’t!–for uses outside the military because people read this kind of bullshit and say rape doesn’t matter and doesn’t endanger your life and child abuse doesn’t matter because everyone grew up like that, so what are you, you fucking snowflake, you got hypochondria and faking disability so you can sit around like a welfare queen while everyone else busts their asses supporting your worthless life?

an article about ptsd where the fucking doctor says that nobody but these certain people have ptsd is BIGOTRY against mentally ill people. these are the kind of doctors who kill their patients and deliberately inflict harm, because you can see the cuntery and disregard in the behavior. yet here we all are, applauding this cunt for exactly the abusive behavior that i wager gave most of us ptsd in the first place. for exactly the abuse that crippled us as kid, for exactly the abuse our parents inflicted on us, for exactly the medical neglect and abuse that’s fucked us all over our whole lives.

and yall applauding this cunt. this is why medical malpractice, especially psychiatric malpractice, is so prevalent and nothing will ever be done about it. as long as it’s aimed as anyone that people hate, aka US, nobody will care. it’s justified in your eyes. this is what it’s like to get shoved into a fucking psych ward, these are the doctors you meet, this is how you’re treated. super fucking helpful, huh? abuse as praxis because clearly you’re just a selfish cunt pretending to be disabled, whining about not getting your own selfish ways. suck up the rape or we’ll rape you some more.

anenomoose

I don’t think that is what she is saying. She is trying to explain the difference between what she and her patients deal with co.pared to contemporary understanding of PTSD, but she is trying to simplify it for layman’s terms. Her patients (and ongoing victims of abuse) continue to have to worry about when the next hit will come. Patients with Post traumatic stress disorder, when the trauma has truly passed, don’t actually have to worry about the next hit, because there won’t be one.

warpedellipsis

That’s not how PTSD is understood, though. And yes, there is always the worry that you’ll be abused again for anyone, no matter where in the world they are, because once abused you’re statistically likely to get abused again….and again….and again. People see the differences, and nasty people take advantage of that. There is no such thing as safety from rape. There is no such thing as safety from abuse. There is no such thing as safety from attack, from getting shot, from anything. There is no such thing as safety from malpractice, from cops, from lawyers, from other people. That’s the point. That’s what trauma takes from you.

To claim that there are people who have safety and therefore their PTSD is stupid, doesn’t count, because they know they’re safe, so therefore that’s a disorder and people in “real” danger therefore don’t have a disorder? No. That’s the same kind of stupidity that denied PTSD was a thing, then gave up on that and denied PTSD was a thing for anyone but the military, and now is doing the same thing again to everyone who “doesn’t count” with a helping of racism and imperialism to appeal to people who otherwise ought to be against this bigotry. It’s all the same pattern. Bigots never change their tune: selfishness and hate justified by jack shit to make themselves look good. That’s all this article is.

Just because there aren’t bombs falling from the sky doesn’t make a place safe. It’s not a disorder because danger has passed, it’s not normal because danger hasn’t. It fucks you up no matter where you are with the trauma, that’s why it’s called a disorder.

Cancer doesn’t get a special name for being in more places or affecting more systems. It’s called cancer whether you have a tiny removable dot or a big heart tumor that’s gonna kill you in two days. That some people suffer more cancer and in worse places does not change the fact that it’s cancer. We don’t moralize it–no, I shouldn’t say that, because people absolutely DO that shit too.

If we’re going to say that some people are safe and therefore have different ptsd than other people who are actually in danger, then I challenge you to show me what “safe” is, how I can tell who’s going to rape me or not, who’s abusive or not, how to escape lifelong abuse, how to avoid ableists, how to never again have to see a psychiatrist, a doctor, a hospital, never ever have to be transported by ambulance, never get in a car crash, never need emergency care, stay the fuck away from cops who get sent to harass me or flatly refuse to help me all the time, never never never ANYTHING. Tell me that and I’ll concede some people have bullshit “””””western”””” white man’s white supremacy imperialist PTSD, while other brown people have Real True Totes Not Fake!™ Scaredy Cat Special Person Syndrome.

See how that works? This woman is an ableist, bigoted, incompetent cunt. A medical license doesn’t turn a person into god, but it sure does turn a lot of them into the fucking devil.

anenomoose

I think you are reading things into what she is trying to say that maybe aren't there?

She uses the specific example of people who travel overseas to warzones, and then leave warzones. Once a person has left a warzone, they are no longer in a place where it is to be expected that they will be shot at on a regular basis, and the reactions that they develop for survival would be no longer useful to them and may be detrimental to them. However, for a person who remains in a warzone, those reactions are still useful to them. Their mental health still suffers and they still need help, but they need different strategies to treat their mental health than those who are no longer experiencing the thing that caused the trauma.

In both cases the trauma is real and the effects are real and neither person is stupid for having those reactions. One of them needs those reactions for survival wile the other can learn new ways of coping because the reactions are no longer helpful.

You are right, there is no guarantee that something won't happen, but like weather predictions there are higher and lower likelihoods of things happening. Even with a 1% chance of rain, it might still rain, but an umbrella would be less necessary than if there was a 99% chance of rain.

A person who reacts to the sound of a garage door opening by hiding away their hobbies because their abusive parents would trash them no longer needs to have that reaction when they live with people who love them and support their hobbies, but of course they needed that reaction when they lived with their parents. They would need different strategies for their mental health and well-being while living with their parents vs living with people who live and support them, though. But they did experience trauma and that did change their brain.